1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to low-calorie candies with high storage stability, with less danger of causing tooth decay and having favorable taste and flavor, and to a process for producing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Candies are confectioneries made mainly of sucrose and also, as auxiliaries, other sugars (starch syrup, etc.), dairy products, acidulants, food colors, perfumes and other ingredients. Candies are very diverse in type, ranging from taffies and drops to many other products having complicated compositions.
Sucrose, which is the main material of candies, is readily soluble in water and easily crystallizes from aqueous solution. Upon heating, it forms invert sugar and also tends to undergo condensation and polymerization to yield glutinous substances with high molecular weights, which are considered to be the essence of flavor given off when sucrose is boiled down.
In recent years, demand has been increasing for new types of candies which employ, as the main material, maltitol, coupling sugar or the like in place of sucrose, and are therefore low in calorific value or are difficult to digest.
Such candies using sugar alcohols, glycosylsucrose or the like have the disadvantages of low sweetness, slow reaction in developing sweet taste, high hygroscopicity, and failure to give intended crispness. Particularly, maltitol and reducing maltose syrup containing much maltitol are difficult to crystallize and the crystals, if formed, are highly hygroscopic. In addition, when one tries to produce candies of multi-layer structure, it has been difficult to obtain stable, uniform and firm sugar coating by conventional techniques (using syrup prepared from maltitol, water, binder and other additives). Hence there have been no such candies of multi-layer structure using maltitol or reducing maltose syrup as main materials.
Therefore, nothing is known about those candies made from maltitol or reducing maltose syrup which stably incorporate a sweetening agent of high sweetness (e.g., aspartame) and are thus satisfactory in sweetness, rapid development of sweetness and storage stability.